Mind over Matter: Essays on Mentalities in Medieval India

The primary focus of most scholars in the field of medieval Indian studies has been on economic history. Their judgement and estimate of medieval Indian society are largely based on the data available on economic social and politico-administrative institutions. In contrast processes and phenomena that belong to the spheres of mentality religion culture scientific knowledge - the worldview of medieval Indians - have attracted little attention and mostly as an appendix to the fundamental themes. The typical historical treatise on the medieval period deals with political events the economy (agriculture crafts and trade) major social groups (their relation and life) the administrative system taxation and at the end as a concession a bit of culture - brief descriptions of religious life literature and the fine arts. This volume seeks to create an interest in the mental and behavioral aspects of medieval society in India. The contributors to the volume belong to various schools of thought and follow different methodological approaches in their study of socioeconomic and administrative development of medieval India. The papers presented here make a collective effort to denote several components of the medieval Indian mental program. First that the medieval Indian state may be viewed not only in terms of control exploitation extraction and appropriation but also in terms of practices ideas and ideologies that were closely linked (among other things) with religion. Second that medieval Indian society had a specific understanding of the past and of social experience and that history individual or collective was recorded and reproduced not just to state facts but also to create patterns for subsequent generations to follow. Third that a central feature of medieval society was hierarchy - as embedded in the relations not only between social classes and groups but between individuals and as encompassing even intimate feelings and desires. Further that the intellectual worlds of medieval India as revealed by literary philosophical and grammatical treatises which are the repositories of intellectual spiritual and emotional experience reflect the modes of dissemination and preservation of tradition as well as of dissent. Fourth the presence of social and communal conflict and of mechanisms of conflict resolution that were peculiar to medieval Indian society. The editors of the volume believe that there is need for comparative studies first to realize the peculiarities of the medieval outlook in various regional cultures of India and second to study what in the worldview under research was specifically Indian and what was typically medieval and common to other pre-modern societies.